Comcast Course Project

Comcast Course Project

Comcast: A Leader in Technology Innovation

Overview of Comcast
Comcast was founded in 1969 in Pennsylvania by Ralph Roberts, Joe Roberts, and Julian Brodsky after Roberts bid successfully for cable franchises in Philadelphia. After this success he decided to expand the company’s operations further and in 1972 they took the company public due to the stagnation of subscriber rates. Comcast decided to move into the telephone business in 1988 when they purchased Amcell, this was the first time a cable company was able to offer their customers telephone service from another source other than the telephone providers. Ralph Roberts named his son, Brian L. Roberts to be the next president of the company which took everyone by surprise but he turned out to be a very efficient manager. In the mid-1990s there was an increase in activity for the cable and telecommunications industries due to deregulation which brought the cable and telephone companies into competition with one another, an increase of mergers and acquisitions were seen since many companies wanted to build more efficient networks. Microsoft Corporation decided to invest one billion dollars into Comcast so they would have a cable partner that could test “ interactive television and high-speed computer services,” (Funding Universe) they decided to choose Comcast due to them having the most advanced cable systems in the country at the time. Around the same time Microsoft invested, Comcast converted to a new fiber-coaxial technology which in turn made it more efficient by improving its reliability and the overall signal quality. Comcast went to being solely a cable company to a giant in the technology world and this is proven with their most recent revenue increase of $37.9 billion in 2011 to $55.8 billion in 2012.
Comcast does have a few competitors in the market with the major ones being Verizon, DirecTV, AT&T, and Century Link.
Characteristics of Comcast
Comcast offers a variety of...